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Everton 's director of football says he was also interested in signing Sevilla’s Clement Lenglet earlier in the summer but Mina would become the club’s No1 target after Barcelona signed the France international in late July.

“With the central defender, from the beginning we had Mina on our list and Lenglet on our list but he went to Barcelona quite early in the market so it was quite simple for us: go for Mina,” Brands said.

“And, honestly, I was watching England v Colombia in the house of Farhad with the chairman and Marco and I said: “S**t, he’s scored”.

Colombia's Yerry Mina gets emotional as he celebrates scoring his side's equaliser in the World Cup second round game against England

“Because that makes it more difficult for us and especially as it came against England, so that was double s**t.

“You go through those kind of things in the market, it’s like it is.”

Everton eventually signed Mina for around £27m late on deadline day with the deal including potential add-ons of £1.3m and a buy back clause, reported to be set at £54m.

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Brands says the Blues could have secured his services earlier in the window if they had be willing to pay more but the Dutchman was unwilling to pay over the odds.

“I came in on June 1, you identify positions and you start working,” he explained. “Then you have the World Cup and a smaller time in the window and you don’t know what kind of consequences this will have for the countries around us.

“Do they wait? You saw in Barcelona, they were expecting bigger offers for Mina in the last days of the Premier League window, that is why they waited.

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“Then it is a little bit of a gamble. I could maybe have had Mina earlier but then would have to pay £5m more and I didn’t want to spend anymore money, so that is always a little bit of a gamble and that makes it a little bit tricky and a little bit difficult.”

As Brands says, negotiations were tough with the Spanish giants and Everton had to start lining up alternatives should a deal for Mina collapse.

But the transfer guru says Mina, who is due to train with the squad on Thursday, was set on joining the Blues from the start of the summer and the weekend before deadline day, as Everton played Valencia in their final friendly of the summer, he began to believe an agreement could be reached.

“To be honest, I had a good feeling from the weekend,” Brands said.

“From the beginning, Yerry was 100% convinced that he wanted to play for Everton but then you guys (the media) messed a lot of bad things for us because Man United was in - I’m not sure how they were in or if Barcelona used it - so I had to be strong and say ‘if United are coming, they are coming in but the player wants Everton’.

“So that was a difficult one. And you never know when it can ends, sometimes you can lose him and sometimes you are lucky.”